The Association for Psychological Science has named Stephanie Ortigue, visiting assistant professor of psychology in Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Sciences, a 2011 Rising Star. The announcement was made in the September 11 issue of the association’s news publication, Observer.

Founded in 1988, the Association for Psychological Science is a nonprofit scientific organization dedicated to the advancement of scientific psychology and its representation at the national and international levels. The organization has approximately 23,000 members and includes leading psychological scientists and academics, clinicians, researchers, teachers, and administrators.

Ortigue’s research is at the intersection of psychology and cognitive and social neuroscience in health and neurological disease.  Combining high-resolution brain imaging techniques with psychophysics, her work focuses on the brain mechanisms mediating unconscious effects of pair-bonding (such as love) on embodied cognition, body language understanding, and the role of the mirror neuron system facilitating the understanding of desires, intentions, and actions of other people while in social settings. Ortigue believes that a better understanding of how intentions of others are pre-consciously understood can provide critical insights to help individuals who suffer from chronic interpersonal disorders, such as autism.

Ortigue chairs the finance committee of the international scientific Society for Social Neuroscience, is a member of the editorial board of NeuroImage, and holds a research professorship while on leave from SU at the University of Geneva, which is funded by the National Science Foundation of Switzerland.